This fact gets trotted out every year, and it continues to
baffle, but here it is: the biggest opening weekend for a baseball-themed movie
is “The Benchwarmers” with $19.7 million. Despite the fact that no single human
being has ever willingly watched that film beyond that first weekend, it’s
managed to sustain that record despite a number of contemporary mainstream
baseball releases. But this weekend, somehow, the adventures of Spade,Schneider and Heder have been surpassed by “42,” the Jackie Robinson
biopic.

Usually studios will capitalize on major moments on the
sports calendar to release a corresponding movie, whether it be the NBA Finals,
NCAA March Madness, or The Lumberjack Championships, with “Moneyball” and
“Trouble With The Curve” being the last major baseball films hitting the
multiplex right before the start of the postseason. “42” similarly capitalized
on the excitement from the start of the season two weeks ago (as well as
Sunday’s Jackie Robinson Day), utilizing an aggressive marketing campaign
boosted by Jay-Z’s “Brooklyn (We Go Hard),” an example of a pop song doing an
ad campaign’s heavy lifting. Speaking of which, it would be interesting to
examine the demographics behind this opening (which generated a rare ‘A+’
Cinemascore), as various smartypants sports journalists love writing articles
about how baseball has lost popularity among black Americans.

While not exactly spotlighted in the ads, this increases the
visibility of lead Chadwick Boseman, who is quite excellent as Robinson. A star
is born? After this opening, it would be nice to see Boseman on the same
casting lists as other young up-and-comers around Hollywood. Hey, maybe Marvel
has found its “Black Panther“? But it’s hard to ignore the elephant in the room;
as diminished as his box office appeal may be, Harrison Ford is still a
household name, and his joyless lurching from press event to press event greatly
helped increase the film’s profile.

Each “Scary Movie” film thus far has been something of a
smash, with the last entry in 2006 pulling in over $40 million in its first
three days. But as the Weinsteins took their Miramax/Dimension franchises to The
Weinstein Company, they waited a bit too long to capitalize on whatever heat
those titles had left. So in the tradition of “Scream 4” and “Spy Kids: All The
Time In The World” comes “Scary Movie 5,” a movie that only Simon Rex asked
for. With the absence of Anna Faris and Regina Hall, two actors that starred in
all previous four films, you had to wonder if the promo team knew what they
were doing spotlighting the presence of Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan as some
sort of substitution, even if an allegedly more sane Sheen was apparently in
the last one.

Since that fourth “Scary Movie,” the spoof well has been
poisoned by the “Date Movie” and “Epic Movie” guys, as their annual offerings
eventually saw diminished returns. However, it has to sting that this opening
doesn’t even match that of “A Haunted House,” the horror spoof made
independently by “Scary Movie” originator Marlon Wayans that grossed over $40
and is now slated for a sequel. The Weinstein Company, you just got kicked in
yo’ ghost balls.

“The Croods” hung on strong in weekend four, though at this
point it may not elevate to the level of DreamWorks hit “How To Train Your
Dragon.” But these numbers suggest that “The Croods 2: The Streets” could very
well be a possibility. Most of these CGI ‘toons bank on an accompanying
animated series, massive merchandising stats and a couple of sequels, so we’ll
see how aggressive Fox is feeling with their first DreamWorks Animation title,
and potential franchise. You wonder if Paramount is thinking the same about
“G.I. Joe: Retaliation.” They announced a sequel quickly after the opening
weekend, but domestically, it’s possible it could finish $20 million or
greater below its predecessor. However, globally, it will
heavily outpace the first film. Will a third movie get made or was ‘Retaliation’ just
a pre-summer palette cleanser?

Tradition dictates that horror films fall off sharply after
that first weekend, and in that respect, “Evil Dead” didn’t disappoint. The $17
million-budgeted effort did indeed fall off a cliff from the number one slot
last weekend, though it’s likely a considerable success at this point. Given
that Sam Raimi and company stretched the original series to increasingly
ridiculous directions, does Sony have the stones to go weirder with an “Evil
Dead 2”? Maybe the better, more relevant question is why does Sony have to
spend $17 million on an “Evil Dead” movie? For Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures, a shingle specifically for very low budget horror, it’s worth noting this will be their eighth release to gross over $30 million
domestic.

“Jurassic Park 3D” continued a trend of underperforming
re-releases, losing a hefty chunk of its opening audience. Universal has to be
content with this providing a little extra exposure for this franchise before a
fourth film comes out, and surely some DVD boxed sets will be moved before
“Jurassic Park IV” steps out of the paddocks next summer. For some of these
re-releases, the real money is in overseas revenue anyway, and Spielberg’s
dino-bash should be much more successful internationally. Surprisingly, the
weekend’s strongest hold was “Olympus Has Fallen,” which could conceivably leg
it out to $100 million if FilmDistrict keeps it in theaters and it continues
receiving what apparently has been rather strong word-of-mouth.

“Oz the Great and
Powerful” has hung on long enough to await being punched out of the top ten by
the latest big blockbuster, though Disney’s potential franchise-starter is the
year’s highest-grossing film, even if it may not even sniff $600 million
worldwide. “Tyler
Perry’s Temptation: Confessions Of A Marriage Counselor” should land over $50
million, a spectacular result for a film without Perry’s Madea character that
received the smallest wide release of any Perry films in years. And expanding
from 30 to 514 theaters was “The Place Beyond the Pines,” gate-crashing the top
ten right ahead of “Trance,” itself at 438 locations, collecting a little less
than a million.

In limited release, an expansion from five to 41 theaters for “The Company You Keep” established the film as the strongest holdover with $311k. Moderately in the same ballpark was the 15-theater debut of “Disconnect,” which grossed a so-so $124k. “Upstream Color” expanded from its single location into ten more theaters, collecting $74k, while “The Angels’ Share” and “It’s A Disaster” opened with $21k and $17k in three theaters each, respectively. Support your local arthouse theater, boys and girls.